dor
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Posts posted by dor
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Problem these days is, if they didn’t warn people, and someone slipped on some ice, they would get sued.
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3 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:
I hope you mean you don't let the batteries go below 12.5, they would be below 14.5 within seconds/minutes of turning the charge off.
It works for me as well except my alternator was a Paris-Rhone. 70 amp with a 14.5 volt regulator.
Yes of course! My mistake, 12.5V is my personal "minimum voltage" although it sometimes goes down to 12.3 at the end of an evening if I haven't run the engine for a day, in winter, but usually recovers a bit by the morning.
Thank you for pointing out my silly error (I've edited the original).
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I had a fancy Sterling digital controller, but found that despite the blueb saying it detected the charge state initially and charged accordingly, it always dropped into float after the same time (and too early).
I replaced the Iskra 14.0V regulator with a 14 6V one (£15 on ebay) and reckon I get a better charge than with the Sterling. I've got a fairly good idea of what is going on, with various ammeters and voltmeters. Although I don't always leave the boat with the batteries fully charged, I reckon to get about three years out of 4 x 110 basic batteries. I could probably go another year or more if I had to. This was after fitting 200W of solar panels which would top up the batteries in the 3 or 4 days I was away for much of the year.
We use a fair bit of power with fridge, largish tv, computer and phone charging, and I try and avoid the batteries going below about 12.5V.
This seems to fit with what Gibbo was saying 10 or 15 years ago. But what the hell, it works for me.
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I’ve used a ring of rope to centre the flue, then ht silicone.
No problems,just don’t let it get red hot.
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4 hours ago, 1st ade said:
And increasingly leaves you thinking "how on earth did someone allow a treasured possession to get in that state"?
This. I often wonder "If it means so much to you, why did you leave it in a leaking shed for thirty years?"
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I've got a small LED light on the front, angled well up. However my main light in a tunnel is a LED torch (from Screwfix). This has a remarkable output from its 5mm square lamp, and is brighter than a good car headlamp; - how LED lamps have come on in the last couple of years. This I keep at the back just sitting on the roof, but easily picked up to highlight anything. The battery lasts for ages - just as bright after an hour, but I have a 12V outlet on the back (semi-trad) which I could plug it into if I had to.
ETA: I only come across narrow tunnels in my crusing range, so dazzling oncoming boaters is not really an issue.
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On 23/03/2020 at 21:12, StephenA said:
Was that Will Self? ?
He seemed to play a lot of parts ...
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5 hours ago, cuthound said:
In my opinon, after a career designing and project managing critical power installations for telephone exchanges, data centres and hospitals, the method of interconnecting doesn't matter providing the cables and interconnects are adequately rated.
UPSs often have several strings of 200 x 2 volt cells connected in series/parallel and the power takes offs are invariably on the first and last cells.
Is it not so much the size of the interconnects (provided they are large enough), but the cleanliness and number of connections? As I understood it, only very small resistances could influence how the volts are shared.
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Well it certainly is going to be different this year!
A very happy holiday to everyone. For the first time we will have no family visits this season. Nearly a year since I last saw no 2 family grandchildren (and their parents) in the flesh. Thank goodness for Skype and Zoom.
It wasn’t long ago that we were saying the same thing about email; nearly instant compared to the post which could take several days. When my wife’s grand parents went to Australia in the ‘30s a letter took 6 weeks to three months! We should be very grateful for modern communication technology. What will it be like in another couple of years?Some years ago Tomorrow’s World talked about video calling. Imagine if anyone had said that you could carry out a high definition video conversation in real time, from nearly anywhere in the country, on you phone, ....... for free!
Have a great time every one.
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I used to really like this programme when it was first showing, in its half hour format.
It showed some remarkably talented people doing some exceptional repairs.
However lately it has just become a maudlin tear-fest. Very little of the tricky restoration work is shown and it is all about extracting the maximum amount of tears and emotion. Not what I watched it for.
However it is by all accounts now extremely popular so not much chance of getting back to the real restoration.
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I am surprised that the jet ski had enough fuel to run for over four hours.
I wonder what went through his mind after a couple of hours or so.
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I was tempted by the idea, but put off by the fuel consumption. Seems a lot compared to SF if running 24/7.
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4 hours ago, Opener said:
Wow! Muchly surprised - is that only on mobile fillers? I'd swear my local static filling station has them on their diesel pumps at least but I usually can't afford to buy that much so can't be certain. I get the point about dispensing more than you can afford to pay for - must remember that one for future use?. But would have thought the overtopping tank safety reasons would trump eejuts putting too much in.
The fillers will still shut off when the level of fuel reaches the spout. What has changed is that you can’t put the spout in the filling pipe with it locked open.
You have to hold the spout handle open, rather than locking it on and leaving the spout in the filling hose. -
One of th first things I did with my boat keys was check they floated.
I added a second cork float.
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I wonder if they have done similar work on stoves burning coal or nuts.
Probably no better.
I have lived much of my life with open wood fires or stoves. Not the last thirty years in a house, but a lot of it on a boat. Most of the first thirty five years was with open fires and often smoky wood stoves ( in Wales the main source of heat).
It would be interesting to know if my lung disease was influenced by that, compared to my modest smoking habit before I gave up thirty years ago.
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17 minutes ago, Tony Brooks said:
12.4 volts has discharged to around a true 75% so it says it either has not recently had a routine freshening charge or as I said it was dry charged from the factory and was not properly charged upon filling. Often dry charged batteries were filled and immediately out into service so, in theory, they were charged on the vehicle.
Dry charging is a manufacturing technique where the battery is assembled with part pre-charged plates and then sealed in an air tight case. Typically the holes below the filler caps had a sacrificial plastic diaphragm sealing them so upon sale the diaphragms were punched out and the battery filled and immediately put into service. I have never seen a dry charged battery marked as such because those dealing with them know what they are and how to treat them but sometimes you can see the remains of the diaphragm. I think they can out a coating on the plates instead of the diaphragm that is dissolved upon filling. I ould have nothing against a dry charged battery as long as it had received a proper charge after filling.
Until recently, all the motorcycle batteries I have bought have been dry-charged, sold sealed with foil as you say, with a separate container of acid that punctured the seals as you filled them.
I believe the H&S means that they can no longer sell batteries like this, and they must be filled before sale.
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Isn't "waterless coolant" what Lister owners call "air"?
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A few years ago a friend spent over £1000 a year to store mostly his lp collection when he move onto a boat. Several thousand of them, retired music journalist.
He put it down to just another cost of boating.
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Reflections, reflections, reflections ...
River Severn
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1 hour ago, colmac said:
have often wondered if he has someone with him flying the drone for the airborne shots though I suppose he could fly it himself and use a bit of clever editing.
Certainly had someone else with him when he went past my mooring on the way to Nantwich.
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Watched a couple on iPlayer yesterday. The production seems to be improved from previous series. So, so much better than the "celebrity" barging about programmes. Good mix of boating and the areas he visited.
Probably one of the best programme/vblogs available at the moment.
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18 hours ago, doratheexplorer said:
The lack of lock ladders is a problem, but the big issue is the bridge below the bottom gate, meaning than it's a lot harder to simply pull your boat through with a rope. When I got to the bottom of the lock, there was a boat ahead already going up, so I made myself look as pitiful as possible and the lovely skipper took the bait and asked one of his crew to hang back and help me. Then they waited for me in the next lock and we did the rest of the wide locks together, which was lovely.
A broom is useful for the Beeston Iron footbridge, having watched a BW man deal with it. Swing the rope under the footbridge and catch it with the broom.
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I'm pretty good at proof reading, so find simple mistakes annoying. I find it remarkable that mistakes like this can pass so many people and still go through.
A few years ago signs were put up on the culvert access gates on the Llangollen canal saying "No public rightaway". I wondered just how many people this had passed through without it being spotted or, more likely, couldn't be bothered to correct it.
It is an appalling reflection of the standard of people employed by the Trust.
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Good result!
Wood burners are potential killers scientists report.
in General Boating
Posted
How does this account of stoves compare to burning logs on an open fire?